Pro Tip: Make the People Who Dumped You Pay You to Become Powerful

When I finished my freshman year of college, I made the boy who dumped me a week before finals clean out my dorm room. I had never once bothered sweeping in there and considered watching him vacuum under my bed a victory. And today, I learned I share this dominative spirit with none other than U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who once got her exes to donate a total of $17,000 to her campaign.

The Cut dug through this weekend’s TimesTalk forum featuring a bipartisan collection of women senators: Susan Collins, Heidi Heitkamp, Klobuchar, and Joni Ernst. The four discussed the unique struggles they faced as women in the Senate—in which only 51 women total have served since 1789—swapping stories about insufficient bathrooms, unequal gym facilities, and getting mistaken for senators’ wives at the Capitol. But then there was this, from Klobuchar: “I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends,” she said, referencing her 2006 run for the Minnesota Senate seat.

Oh hell yeah, Amy.

Klobuchar was the first woman Minnesotans elected to the Senate, a feat that alone takes guts. But it’s even more impressive that she managed to get her exes to pony up for her run, considering I can’t even convince mine to return the books I lent them. I’m sure she asked them nicely to donate, or got one of her campaign volunteers to do it, but I’d like to imagine she personally terrorized them into it, for fun.